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Story Highlights

A south Florida lawmaker said it is time to create a Florida Holocaust Memorial at the state Capitol. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Coral Springs, said in a year when lawmakers are talking about removing Confederate symbols, he thinks it is appropriate to propose a memorial that people can be proud of and that represents the people of Florida and their values.

“We have many folks who are either survivors or had escape the Holocaust or their parents or grandparents did,” said Moskowitz. “All the witnesses are dying out so this is a way to remember what happened.”

A Berman Institute-North American Jewish Data Bank study counted 127,000 Holocaust survivors living in the United States in 2010. The study projects in the next 15 years their numbers would drop to 15,800.

Moskowitz’s HB 513 would have the Florida Historical Commission recommend where to build the memorial at the Capitol complex in Tallahassee. In recent years, Iowa, Ohio and South Carolina have built memorials at their capitols in memory of the victims of the Nazi slaughter of European Jews.

“Thousands of students visit our state Capitol every year, making it an ideal location to place a memorial,” said Steve Uhlfelder, a Tallahassee civic leader who has written commentaries in support of Moskowitz’s idea.

“It would teach them about the evils of discrimination,” said Uhlfelder.

Florida has one of the largest population of Holocaust survivors in the United States. An estimated 15,000 survivors live in South Florida, according to the Jewish Federation of North America.

contact James Call at jcall@tallahassee.com and follow on Twitter @CallTallahassee